By AppleInsider Staff

Published: 05:00 PM EST (02:00 PM PST)

Over the next several months, Intel Corp will introduce two families of quad-core Xeon processors -- one for servers and another for desktops -- with speeds that top out at 2.66GHz per core, company roadmaps have revealed.

Clovertown MP-capable quad-cores around the corner

According to documents obtained by DailyTech, the world's largest chipmaker later this year will introduce its Xeon 5000 series of DP server processors, currently code-named "Clovertown."

The quad-core and multi-processor-enabled chips will arrive in X5355, E5345, E5320 and E5310 models clocked at 2.66, 2.33, 1.86 and 1.60 GHz, according to the report. Models X5355 and E5345 will reportedly feature a 1,333 MHz front-side bus while the E5320 and E5310 will have a slightly slower 1,066 MHz front-side bus. Each of the chips will sport 8MB of L2 cache.

In lots of 1000, Clovertown processors will be priced at $1172, $851, $690 and $455 for models X5355, E5345, E5320 and E5310, respectively, DailyTech says.

Kentsfield quad-core desktop chips by Q107

According to the same report, Intel will proceed the launch of Clovertown with a Xeon 3000 line of quad-core desktop processors, code-named "Kentsfield."

The chips, which will carry processor numbers X3220 and X3210, are said to be identical to the recently named Intel Core 2 Quadro processors and share the same core.

"There will be no architectural or socket differences between desktop Core 2 Quadro and Xeon X3000 series processors, with the exception of product placement and marketing," DailyTech said. "The new Xeon X3220 and X3210 processors will arrive clocked at 2.4 and 2.13 GHz with a 1066 MHz front-side bus respectively."

Like the Clovertown family, both Kentsfield Xeon X3000 processors will feature 8MB of L2 cache. The chips are expected to fetch $851 and $690, respectively, when they make their debut around the first quarter of 2007.

In July, Intel said it was bumping the release of both Clovertown and Kentsfield to the fourth quarter of this year from their previous target date of early 2007.

It's unclear if Kentsfield's release has slipped back to "early 2007."

Update

Just to clarify: DailyTech in the cited report focuses on Intel's Xeon (server) family of chips. However, it appears chips based on the Kentsfield core will come in both a server variant and a high-end desktop variant (though they'll essentially be identical). The server model will be branded a Xeon and the desktop model a Core 2 Extreme. The aforementioned part numbers, pricing and specs are for the Xeon model.